Saturday, November 21, 2015

Someone is taking Peter Quinn seriously. You recall that
ISIS blew up a Russian airplane and murdered scores of Russian civilians a few
weeks ago.

Now, an Israeli intelligence source reports that Russia is
exacting swift retribution. It is turning Raqqa, the capital of the ISIS
caliphate, into rubble. Somehow American news media do not seem to be giving
the story very much attention.

Russia
has launched a merciless blanket air campaign, backed by Kalibr cruise missiles
fired from the Caspian and Mediterranean Seas, for the object of wiping the
Islamic State’s Syrian center of Raqqa off the map, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

Western and Middle East sources tracking the campaign since Friday, Nov. 20,
report that at least 75 air sorties have been conducted and are systematically
razing the town of 200,000 inhabitants 160km east of Aleppo, district by
district, irrespective of civilian town dwellers.

Moscow
wants the entire Middle East and Muslim world to see the price exacted for
launching a terrorist attack on Russia after the downing of the Metrojet
airliner that killed 224 people over Egyptian Sinai on Oct. 31. Russian bombers
and cruise missiles rained death and destruction on the ISIS administration
center after the jihadists claimed responsibility for that disaster and
published photos of a soft drink can claimed to have been rigged as a bomb for
blowing the plane up.

When
the Russians are done, the town will be a pile of rubble, an intelligence
source told DEBKAfile.

In the meantime, American pilots have been kept on a very
short leash by the Obama administration. You see, our cowardly commander in
chief will only allow us to bomb ISIS targets when they are certain that there
will be no, that is, zero civilian casualties. ISIS knows that it can protect itself from American bombs by using human shields.

U.S.
military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in
Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their
ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a
strike, according to a leading member of Congress.

Strikes
against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often
blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and
collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee.

The
policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain strength
across Iraq and continue waging terrorist strikes throughout the region and
beyond, according to Royce and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday
about flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic State.

“You
went 12 full months while ISIS was on the march without the U.S. using that air
power and now as the pilots come back to talk to us they say three-quarters of
our ordnance we can’t drop, we can’t get clearance even when we have a clear
target in front of us,” Royce said. “I don’t understand this strategy at all
because this is what has allowed ISIS the advantage and ability to recruit.”

Unless the purpose is to allow ISIS the advantage and
ability to recruit. Or better, let’s say that the intention does not really
matter. Let’s say that the outcome defines the intention… because
responsibility is not necessarily a function of intention.